Morissette content with `Chaos'

May 16, 2004|By Steve Baltin, Special to the Tribune.

Last November, while still in the midst of recording her latest album, "So Called Chaos," Alanis Morissette listened back to seven songs from the record. Outside the window of the Santa Monica, Calif., studio's control room, several of Morissette's handlers motioned frantically for her to stop the playback, as she was late for an appointment.

Morissette, whose back was to the window, said laughing, "If I don't see them, they're not there."

Typical in-the-studio visits involve an artist playing a track or, at the most, two, but Morissette, welcoming with a large smile and casual attire, begins by asking, "Do you want to hear the whole album?" An excited Morissette couldn't wait to share the songs with listeners.

Seven months later, the record is finally hitting stores Tuesday. Admittedly the long delay, a decision by the label, has been an agonizing one for Morissette, though she's gotten around it by giving music to friends in the interim.

The Ottawa native, and current Los Angeles resident, turns 30 on June 1. Despite her well-documented, widespread success, including 28 million copies of first album "Jagged Little Pill" sold worldwide, she says of her current work, "I feel like I've really grown into my own style and my own way of communicating."

A veteran

Anthony DeCurtis, executive editor of Tracks magazine and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, seconds that belief. "Because of the way that she came onto the scene you still think of Alanis as a kid in some way. But she's a veteran at this point," DeCurtis says. "She's made a bunch of records, she's carved out a clear set of themes she likes to explore, and she's developed her own very distinctive sound."

On "So Called Chaos," Morissette explores an eclectic array of styles, from the hard-rocking opening track "Eight Easy Steps" and the sitar-infused "Knees of My Bees," a song dedicated to Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds -- Morissette's boyfriend of more than a year -- to the tender ballad "This Grudge" and the melodic midtempo lead single "Everything."

Underlying all that musical diversity though is the raw vulnerability fans have come to expect. John Shanks, who co-produced the new album with Morissette and Tim Thorney, was impressed by the singer upon working with her for the first time.

"She's not too afraid to go there and be vulnerable and use her music as a catharsis," he says.

Now, nearing 30, and in a successful relationship for the first time, Morissette says she is learning more about herself.

"This Grudge" is a song about letting go of old animosities. The chorus goes, "I wanna be big/And let go of this grudge that's grown old." For an artist who initially built her following on the ferociousness anger of "You Oughta Know," it's a risky endeavor to let go of that ire. But Morissette says she's ready to move on both personally and musically.

Taking responsibility

"There's still always going to be room for the little victim-y, blame-y part of me that didn't serve me very well in my relationships, but often came out of my songs, like `You Oughta Know,'" she says. "It'll be there when I want it, when it serves the song. But in general I'm taking a little bit more responsibility and finding the difference between being a baby and being vulnerable.

"So many of the things that I'm looking at are so subtle and because they're subtle, they're sometimes difficult to navigate," she continues. "So all those little yummy things that make relationships work -- you don't blame your partner; you take responsibility; you're gentle; you give space, but you don't give too much space; you show compassion, but you also show compassion for yourself. These are all really subtle things that until I started doing them, they just seemed like concepts to me. I thought, `Oh, that sounds smart,' but I'd never really fully done them."

"Everything" is a humanist anthem that reflects, as Morissette would say, the "yummy" complexities of people. In it, Morissette sings, "I blame everyone else, not my own partaking/My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating/I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known/And you've never met anyone who's as everything as I am sometimes."

Shanks, who knows a thing or two about hit singles from his work with Michelle Branch and Sheryl Crow, among others, thinks "Everything" was a dead-on choice for the album's first single. "It needs to be heard, like `Every Breath You Take' [by The Police] or `In Your Eyes' [by Peter Gabriel]. It's a beautiful song, very timeless," he says.

How popular?

DeCurtis questions whether the album will meet with widespread success though.

"This record does not strike me as a blockbuster," he says. "At least the first three times I listened to it, it's not like any particular song jumped out at me and I said, `This is going to be all over the place.'"

"But," he adds, "it's a strong consistent record that I think people who go and listen to it are going to like it. I'd be surprised if this doesn't sell a million copies."

DeCurtis sees Morissette as the type of artist, at this point in her career, who is better suited to consistent sales rather than the mega-platinum experience. "She might be comfortable with being able to make the music she wants to make and having a successful career," DeCurtis says. "She's not the sort of person who's necessarily cut out to be a pop princess."

If Morissette has, at points, had to defend herself from criticism that she's too emotional or candid, she offers no apologies.

"I've always felt like it was my life purpose to evolve publicly so people could do many things," she says "Either evolve along with me, or just define themselves in accordance to where I was at, whether it be by hating it or inspired by it or whatever it is."

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Alanis Morissette performs at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park, on July 21.